Kevin Cooper lawyers gull The Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times has joined the Kevin-Cooper-may-be-innocent fan club. In an editorial this week, the paper oddly called on Gov. Schwarzenegger to commute Cooper’s death sentence for the 1983 murders of Chino Hills chiropractors Doug and Peggy Ryen, their 10-year-old daughter Jessica and 11-year-old houseguest Christopher Hughes. Cooper also left son Josh Ryen for dead.

The editorial’s reasoning for ignoring evidence that places Cooper’s DNA in the Ryens’ home and car and on a T-shirt with Doug Ryen’s DNA?

1. Josh Ryen changed his story.

It’s true that when admitted to the hospital in shock, having spent 11 hours after the assault lying next to his dead mother, and with a slit throat, the eight-year-old originally indicated that three men killed his family and friend. But Josh later described seeing one figure at the massacre and explained how he did not see three figures that night, but earlier when three men came to the house looking for work. All of this came out at trial.

AP, Damian Dovarganes

Kevin Cooper victim Christopher Hughes’ mother Mary Ann

2. “And on the night of the murders, two or three men in bloody clothes were seen in a bar near the crime scene.”

According to an L.A. Times story, “A bartender and waitress from the bar testified during the trial and provided contrary information about the men, saying they were not covered in blood, said John Kochis, San Bernardino County’s chief deputy district attorney.

“Our statements came from employees paid to notice what was happening in their business, not those having a good time and drinking, who I don’t believe ever contacted law enforcement before this last minute,” Kochis said.

3. From the editorial: “Finally, long after his conviction, as Cooper was pursuing appeals, a blood test was performed on the T-shirt; according to analysts, the test detected Cooper’s DNA. At first, that seemed to be the incontrovertible scientific evidence that had for so long been elusive — but Fletcher noted that the blood on the T-shirt contained signs of a preservative used by the sheriff’s office to preserve blood in a laboratory for later testing. According to the judge, that suggested the blood “had been planted on the T-shirt.”

As I wrote when Fletcher’s dissenting and overruled opinion came out, the EDTA (preservative) defense was a complete scam.

At that time, forensics expert Edward T. Blake told me that it was virtually impossible to isolate a forensically significant level of EDTA. He called the court’s move “an abuse of process” that undermined “a legitimate process that’s out there to save people who are actually innocent.”

Note: Blake is the guy whom Cooper’s lawyers had hired to prove Cooper’s innocence. Instead Blake found, as he wrote in a court document, that the DNA tests “proved” that Cooper was the source of blood at the Ryen home, the source of DNA found on two cigarette butts found in the Ryen car, and the source of blood smears on a T-shirt also containing Doug Ryen’s blood.

To believe the L.A. Times explanation, you have to believe that Josh Ryen didn’t tell the truth, that the bar employees didn’t tell the truth, that law enforcement didn’t tell the truth, and indeed, the only person who told the truth is a repeat, violent criminal offender who has escaped from jail multiple times, and has been nailed with DNA evidence.